Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The House has just debated a motion recognising National Landcare Week. One of the features of Landcare projects in my electorate in the time that I have been an MP has been the increasing awareness of the impact of land based activities on the health of the Great Barrier Reef and the uptake of farming and land management practices to reduce nutrient and soil runoff into the waters off our coast. Like so many others, Landcare volunteers want to play a part in protecting this special part of Queensland. I want to use tonight's grievance debate to do my bit to protect the Great Barrier Reef—its beauty, its ecology, its significance as a tourism destination and its stature as one of the natural wonders of the world.

I am afraid—and I know there are many people in my electorate who are afraid—that these things are at risk due to the scale of development bring proposed up and down the Queensland coast. Of particular concern to people in my electorate is the proposal by Xstrata to develop a port facility for loading coal at Balaclava Island, south of Keppel Bay at the mouth of the Fitzroy River.

In light of the recent monitoring mission and resulting report to UNESCO by the World Heritage Centre and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, I do not see how the Xstrata proposal can possibly proceed. But I can assure the House that I will be working with all those concerned residents of the Capricorn Coast, the tourism operators and others who care about our local environment to oppose this project.

The reason is very simple: we are talking about the Great Barrier Reef here, and you do not mess with the Great Barrier Reef. You do not take any chances with the Great Barrier Reef. You do not say, 'Well, the coal industry takes precedence, and we'll get all we can out of it while the going is good; and when the boom is over, then we can take a more measured approach and start taking better care of the reef.' There is only one Great Barrier Reef, and if we destroy all that makes it special and unique, there will not be a second chance. It does not matter how much money we make out of our mining exports; we will not be able to buy a new one.

All Australians have a right to feel proud of the incredible natural asset that is the Great Barrier Reef—and I know that, for us Queenslanders, it inspires an even greater sense of awe and gratitude to have this remarkable treasure on our doorstep. But with that pride and sense of ownership comes a responsibility on us as a nation to understand the reef, to monitor its health and to avoid any complacency about the risks it faces—and, most importantly, to protect it from harm.

One of the ways that the Australian government chose to protect the reef was to nominate it for inclusion on the World Heritage List. The Great Barrier Reef was inscribed in 1981, in recognition of the reef's outstanding universal values. The reef's World Heritage List status is another source of pride for Australians, but we need to understand what that status means. Being on the list means that the reef belongs to the whole world and that the Australian government, on behalf of all Australians, has accepted certain obligations to protect those outstanding universal values which justified its inclusion on the World Heritage List—and that means all of the reef's outstanding universal values, not just the ones that do not get in the way of mining development. Since 1981 there have been many measures introduced at the national and state level to manage the reef in a way that is consistent with those World Heritage List obligations. It is widely acknowledged that Australia has set the standard in many respects when it comes to the protection of an asset like the Great Barrier Reef. But we cannot afford to be complacent, and we cannot grab the benefits that come from the current boom in development and growth along the Queensland coast without facing up to the price being paid by our environment, the most obvious of which is the Great Barrier Reef.

I described the Xstrata project that is the subject of my speech tonight as being south of Keppel Bay. But it is probably more instructive to describe it as being slightly to the north of Gladstone Harbour, because its relationship to Gladstone Harbour takes us to the heart of the matter. According to the UNESCO report from June this year it was the approval of projects in 2009 in Gladstone Harbour, and on Curtis Island, that caught the attention of UNESCO and led to the decision to send a reactive monitoring mission to Australia to assess the state of the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef. Let me assure the House that this mission was no sightseeing cruise. It was and remains crucially important to the continued status of the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage List, a matter of very great importance to each and every Australian, I am sure. The international community, as represented through UNESCO, are asking us whether we can be relied upon to safeguard this international treasure. And I am afraid to say that the answer in the report is a clear warning to us. The report concludes that the 'reef does not currently meet the requirements for inscription on the list of World Heritage in Danger but risks meeting those requirements if remedial measures are not undertaken'. In other words, we are on notice. The world is watching how we manage the Great Barrier Reef and all the risks to its future health.

Those risks are spelt out in the UNESCO report, but it is not like they are new to us nor particularly surprising. Did we really think that we could keep up the pace and scale of development on the Queensland coast and no-one would notice that it was happening right next to the Great Barrier Reef? Did we think no-one else would make the connection between what happens on our coastal land and in our estuaries and in our bays, and how that affects the Great Barrier Reef? It is not like these are small projects—as I am sure you would appreciate, Madam Deputy Speaker, coming from Newcastle—and it is not like they are few and far between. In fact, the UNESCO report refers time and time again to the dozens of projects that are lined up all along the coast and that will be seeking government approval in the coming years, and it talks about a death by a thousand cuts—the idea of whether we are properly measuring and assessing the cumulative effect of all of these projects.

Of all the proposals mentioned in the report the one that came up for special mention is the one that has the people in my electorate so worried, Xstrata's Balaclava Island facility. Here is how the project is described in Xstrata's initial advice statement:

The project will be designed to export up to 35 million tonnes of coal per annum by the use of vessels of up to 110,000 tonnes capacity. The main components of the project comprise the following:

A 13.5 kilometre long rail spur off the Queensland rail network;

Rail receival infrastructure;

Coal in-loading feeders and conveyers;

Coal stockpiles;

Out-loading conveyers;

Ship loaders and export berths;

Environmental management measures, including sediment traps;

Capital and maintenance dredging;

An access road—

Let me assure you the list goes on and on. It goes without saying that this is a massive project. If approved it will have the effect of expanding the footprint of Gladstone Harbour into the Fitzroy delta. This is the same Gladstone Harbour that is described on page 21 of the UNESCO report as being 'far from optimal', and on page five as 'impacting on the outstanding universal properties of the reef'.

People in my electorate would use much stronger language to describe the state of Gladstone Harbour. But it all means the same thing. Keep the development within the existing harbour and do not let Gladstone Harbour creep, by virtue of this Balaclava Island project, up into the Fitzroy delta and to the entrance of Keppel Bay.

No doubt Xstrata will argue that the project will be adjacent to the existing Port Alma facility, which implies, to those who do not know any better, that the coal-loading facility proposed will be just one more industrial activity taking place in this area. I can assure Xstrata that I do know better, and a whole lot of boaties, fishermen and crabbers around our region know better. There is no comparison between what happens at Port Alma now and what is being proposed for Balaclava Island. Port Alma is a tiny facility surrounded by mangroves and wetlands that takes fewer than 100 ships a year. At a capacity of 35,000 tonnes, these ships are one-third the size of the 110,000 tonne vessels that will be coming in to Balaclava Island.

For Port Alma to function only minor dredging is required once every five to eight years. The amount of dredging that will be needed to accommodate Xstrata's Panamax vessels is mind-blowing when you look at the natural dimensions of the shipping channel currently in use.

I said at the start that I would be arguing strongly against this project, and the arguments are all there in the UNESCO report. It calls on the government to undertake a strategic assessment of the reef using powers under the EPBC act. I note that the government is at work on that right now. The report goes further to recommend, in recommendation 2, that the government should:

not permit any new port development … outside of the existing and long-established major port areas …

Recommendation 8 requires the government to adopt:

the highest level of precaution in decision-making regarding development proposals with potential to impact—

the reef—

and to prevent any approval of major projects that may compromise the outcomes of the Strategic Assessment …

It is all there in the report, but you would find the same common-sense advice in any pub, shop or boat ramp on the Capricorn Coast. Keep the industry in Gladstone Harbour where it belongs. Keppel Bay should be preserved as our reminder that there are some things that cannot be valued in dollars per ton. (Time expired)